Irish stew (jane's way!!)

1 Servings

Ingredients

Quantity Ingredient
1 pounds Stewing lamb (or those nice chops!), about
2 mediums Sized carrots (up to 3)
2 Nice sized onions (up to 3)
2 Sticks of celery (up to 3)
Stock cube
Water
Cornflour
Potatoes to suit (meaning as many as you want to cook)

Directions

Irish stew is usually made with those cheap cuts of lamb or what we call gigot chops....stewing chops..personally I don't like them that much. Too fatty..and John's mother always took out the bones when they were kids.

That's a bit of a pain in the ....for me, so I use either pieces of lamb or nice chops with a little round bit of bone in them....my butcher has these in with the stewing chops sometimes (not those leg of lamb chops) so, whenever Des has them I buy them and freeze for when I need em.

Brown meat on both sides, cover with water, bring to boil and simmer for at least 1-1 and a half hours. Doesn't matter what the quality of your meat was before you began. Then, take a spoon and remove any melted fat from your pan. Be sure to leave some for the taste. Peel, and cut up the carrots, onions and celery. Add the stock cube and the veg. Peel the potatoes and add to the pot. All in one pot! When the potatoes are tender - your stew is cooked. To thicken either have a potate so small it melts into the stew during cooking or else remove potatoes from the top of the pot and mix in a tsp or two of cornflour which has been mixed in water.

Make sure to check this when cooking so that you don't simmer off all the water. You literally need to only cover the meat and then when you are adding the veg you can add more water if you like. You want a sauce, but not tons of it and not so much that your veg are covered. Do not have the potatoes covered they cook on the top with only maybe the bottom ones in a bit of the juice!

Throw a bit of chopped parsley on top for colour! One other thing..some people put in parsnip (ugh - too sweet) and some people cook the potatoes separately.

Posted to FOODWINE Digest by Jane O'Brien <jayohbee@...> on Nov 20, 1997

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